


Weak With Me

by mnemosyne23



Category: King Arthur (2004)
Genre: F/M, Unrequited Love, sweet smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-08
Updated: 2014-01-07
Packaged: 2018-01-07 22:52:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1125344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mnemosyne23/pseuds/mnemosyne23
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur is in need of an heir to solidify his reign, but no child is forthcoming. So Guinevere takes matters into her own hands.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_Come my love, I'll tell you a tale  
Of a boy and girl and their love story  
And how he loved her oh, so much  
And of the charms she did possess…_

_-"Storybook Love"  
From The Princess Bride_

  
  
  
By the time the third year passed without an heir, the court at Camelot was abuzz with whispers. The queen was barren. The king was a eunuch. The Romans had poisoned the wine. A sorcerer had cursed the couple. Guinevere had been raped by a Saxon, and her body had frozen in revulsion.   
  
On and on the rumors flew, growing bigger and more ridiculous by the day. Arthur's lance had been struck by lightning, and the shock had charred his innards. Guinevere was a madwoman who drank imported belladonna tea to keep herself infertile. Arthur was half-Roman, and the land itself despised him. Guinevere was a whore, and had been cursed by his God.   
  
Guinevere listened to the gossip with ever-mounting anger. There was little she could do to act on it; she still HADN'T borne an heir for Arthur, and none of the healers knew why. She could deny being raped by a Saxon until she was red in the face, but without any evidence of a more sensible reason, the gossipmongers who lined Camelot's halls would only take her argument as further proof of the lie's veracity.   
  
As Bors might put it, she was damned for breathing, damned for holding her breath.   
  
She could have withstood it - the shame, the humiliation, the sheer suffocating unfairness of it all - if it hadn't been for Arthur. The eyes that had once shone like twin shards of emerald were dark now; dull and grim and heavy-browed. It seemed he carried the world in two slings in the bags beneath his eyes. Guinevere was no fool; she knew he worried about her. On top of all else he had to endure, it was unbearable for her to witness.   
  
This night she had escaped the raucous tumult in the Great Hall and had taken dinner in bed. She couldn't think clearly surrounded by all that noise and motion. The thought made her laugh. Odd that she could make decisions in a split second on the battlefield, but when confronted with personal worries, she needed to be alone to make sense of her own emotions. A piece of her accepted the dichotomy, but most of her hated herself for such weakness.   
  
Her fingers toyed idly with the crust of her bread, which was attached to the body of the loaf by a narrow bridge of dough. The problem could only be one of two things: either Arthur was incapable of fathering children, or Guinevere herself was infertile. Both possibilities left her with a hollow feeling in her belly, as though her stomach had been replaced with a half-empty waterskin. Arthur needed an heir to solidify his place in power; without a legitimate heir, anyone could lay claim to the throne once Artorius died. Her husband was a healthy man, and still young, but the High King of Britannia could not be above the purview of assassins and power mongering pretenders to the throne. He needed a son. He needed a young Arthur.   
  
With a frustrated sigh Guinevere tossed the half-eaten bread aside and fell onto her back on her feather-stuffed mattress. Staring at the beams that criss-crossed her ceiling, she muttered, "If you really are his God, why do you torment him so? If you wish to make this part of your Christendom, it does you no good to saddle him with a barren wife."   
  
_"Communing with foreign gods, Guinevere?"_  
  
Bolting upright, Guinevere blinked at the bearded man who stood like a shadow against the wall beside her door. _"What are you doing here, Merlin?"_ she asked, using their guttural native dialect, as he had done with her. She did not bother to ask how he had come in without her notice. _"You are not invited."_   
  
The older man gave her his mysterious smile - the one she had found so vexing since she was old enough to understand what a smile was - and walked further into her room. He stopped at her fireplace and examined the tapestry that hung above her mantle. It depicted the Battle of Badon Hill in grisly detail.   
  
_"Not a banner to be found in the chambers of most queens,"_ the wizard observed.   
  
_"You have not yet told me why you are here, Merlin."  
  
"Can you not guess?"   
  
"I do not play guessing games."   
  
"You used to."_ The bearded woad turned around, abandoning his native language for his rough, unfamiliar accent. "When you were six, I recall, you much enjoyed guessing games."   
  
Guinevere sighed and rubbed the space between her eyebrows. "That was many years ago, Merlin," she murmured wearily. "And I am not a child anymore."   
  
"No," he agreed, moving towards her across the room. "No longer a child, Guinevere. But not yet a mother." She turned her face away as he sat on the edge of her bed, so that he could not see the tears his statement brought to her eyes. "Look at me, child."   
  
"No longer a child, Merlin, don't you recall?" Her voice sounded choked, even to her own ears.   
  
"To me, you will always be a child."   
  
She felt his hand on her shoulder, and out of habit she turned towards him, wrapping her arms around his neck and burying her face in his shoulder.   
  
"Shhh," Merlin soothed as she wept quietly. "Child, you suffer too much pain."   
  
"My mother told me I would be a great woman someday," Guinevere murmured, miserable, rubbing her tear-streaked cheek against his shoulder. "I wonder what she would think if ever she saw me now."   
  
"Your mother had the sight," Merlin assured her. "She saw what you would be, I am sure of it. And she was proud."   
  
Guinevere raised her face and gazed at him with red-rimmed eyes. "Proud? Of a barren daughter who will doom her country to ruin?" She snorted self-derisively and squeezed her eyes shut, pressing her cheek against his shoulder again. "Always you have been like a father to me, Merlin, but in this, you can be no more than an ear and a shoulder."   
  
"You are not the one to blame."   
  
Guinevere sighed heavily. "Who else?"   
  
"Arthur."   
  
Guinevere froze. Then, pushing away from him as though he'd caught leprosy, she scrambled away and stared at him indignantly. "How DARE you impugn my husband!" she snapped, eyes flashing. "How DARE you!"   
  
Merlin watched her with calm eyes. "I am not in the habit of telling lies, Guinevere."   
  
"Yet you speak out of hand of that which you know NOTHING about!"   
  
"Nothing? Are you so sure of that?" Merlin shook his head and stood up, moving to her tower window. "Do you think Bors is the only knight in this fortress who has slept with a woman? Do you think he is the only one with bastard children?" He did not look over his shoulder as he continued. "The only one who has kept them close, perhaps. The only one who has stayed long enough with one woman to be counted a father to her children." Turning slowly, Merlin faced her head on. "They each have children, Guinevere. Each of them… but not Arthur."   
  
Guinevere watched him suspiciously. "Arthur is a Christian man," she countered. "He would not bed a woman out of wedlock."   
  
"Is that not what he did with you?"   
  
She flushed, but did not speak.   
  
"This country is littered with Sarmatian half-bloods, Guinevere," Merlin continued. "Yet none of them bear the eyes of Artorius."   
  
For a long minute, they stared at each other; but it was Guinevere who blinked away first.   
  
"What then do you suggest I do?" she whispered, the anger gone from her voice, abandoned for hopeless despair. A piece of her had secretly hoped the problem would lie with Arthur, not herself. A piece of her she was not proud of; a piece that soaked her with shame. That piece of her was rejoicing, and it made her sorrow all the more painful.   
  
Merlin did not answer for a minute. Instead, he paced across her room again to the tapestry above her mantle. Guinevere did not need to look; she had memorized every detail in the year it had hung here in her chambers. Without looking she could describe the shade of red that marked the place where Tristan fell. The gold fibers that constituted the hair of the dead Saxon king. The immaculate hand-stitched sword held above the head of the victorious Arthur. The long black body of the wounded Lancelot…   
  
"Artorius must be seen to have an heir," Merlin finally said, jarring Guinevere from her reverie. "There can be no doubt that the child is his."   
  
"If only it could be so."   
  
"There is no reason it cannot."   
  
Guinevere almost laughed. The situation was far too serious, and her grief too fresh, but had it been any other time, she WOULD have laughed. "You have just told me my husband is incapable of fathering children, Merlin," she reminded him. "How can I bear him a son if such be the case?"   
  
Merlin turned, and his eyes were black as coal beneath his shaggy brows. "I said the heir must be seen to come from Arthur," he told her. "I did not say the child needed to be his."   
  
She stared at him uncomprehendingly for a moment. Then, realization struck, and her eyes widened. _"You… ask me to bed ANOTHER?"_ she demanded in their native tongue, barely containing her rage.   
  
_"I ask you to ensure the survival of Britannia."  
  
"You wish me to make a cuckold of the man I love!"   
  
"I ask you to give him the son he desires."   
  
"But the child would not be his!"   
  
"And if you would keep your voice down, he need never know."_ Merlin walked away from the tapestry and came to a stop at the edge of her bed. Staring down at her, he resembled a disapproving prophet. _"Britannia needs an heir; that is certain. Arthur cannot produce one; that too is certain. There are many men here loyal to Arthur, who will do what they must to guarantee his reign is successful and not in vain. You need only find one."_  
  
Guinevere stared at him in horror. _"I cannot do this,"_ she whispered in shock, shaking her head in disbelief. _"I cannot…"_   
  
_"Then our country will fall to pieces when your husband meets his death,"_ Merlin said, the finality of his tone telling her that he would brook no argument. _"You are no longer a child, Guinevere. You must act for your people, not yourself."  
  
"But Arthur-"   
  
"Is king. You are his queen. And the people you rule look to you to keep this country whole against the Saxons. Would you give them over to their enemies for such a small thing?" _  
  
Turning on his heel, cloak swirling, Merlin strode to her door. _"I leave you to think on this, Guinevere,"_ he said. _"But do not think long."_   
  
He opened her door.   
  
"Wait." She said it without even thinking.   
  
Merlin turned to face her.   
  
Guinevere raised her eyes to find his face. Her vision was remarkably clear. "You say they all have children," she murmured.   
  
Merlin nodded tersely.   
  
"Even Lancelot?"   
  
***  
  
 **The Next Morning**  
  
  
Lancelot stood on the battlement of the fort called Camelot, and watched a hawk hunt a squirrel. The hawk was familiar, if not the rodent it pursued.   
  
"You are a lethal bird, Vigdis," he murmured, watching as the raptor calmly spiraled upward around the tree, following the frantic squirrel. "Calculating like your master. I wonder how much you learned from him? As much as he learned from you, I'll wager."   
  
How long had it been since Badon Hill? Three years? Four come winter. Yet still Tristan's spirit lingered in the air, literally and figuratively. Vigdis had done much to keep her master in the thoughts of his friends. Her very presence was enough to make men remember the silent tracker with the deadly blade.   
  
"Three years, Tristan," Lancelot muttered to the air. "Three years, and what have I to account for it? No prospects, no glory. No future save this one. No wife…" He trailed off and swallowed. That was a painful thought, and he was not in the mood to endure it today. "You ought to have been the one who lived, my brother. You understood how to be alone. It is still new to me, and I am not taking to it well."   
  
The hawk swooped in for the kill. The Sarmatian heard a loud SQUEAK!, then nothing.   
  
He sighed. "You and I, eh, Vigdis?" he murmured. "You and I together."   
  
"Lancelot?"   
  
The voice was so unexpected, the knight nearly went pitching head first over the edge of the battlement. Gathering himself - admirably, he thought - he turned to face the speaker. "My queen."   
  
Guinevere was radiant. She had chosen to dress in a simple blue gown today, which draped loosely around her slender body yet did nothing to hide her curves; especially not from Lancelot's practiced eyes. Her skin was pale, only slightly bronzed from the sun; living in a castle had made her look more like a queen than anyone could have predicted. Her raven hair was bound in a loose braid that fell to her tailbone, and free tendrils framed her face, highlighting her cheekbones and turning her green eyes charcoal black.   
  
The young queen gave him a teasing half smile. "We have been friends for three years, Lancelot," she reminded him. "You are Arthur's closest friend, and his most trusted ally. And you are a knight. You may call me Guinevere, just as the others do."   
  
Lancelot gave her his cockiest grin. "As you wish, my queen Guinevere." His throat nearly closed when he said her name. He disguised it as a chuckle.   
  
Her half smile turned into a full grin, and she laughed softly. "You are hopeless, Lancelot. Truly hopeless."   
  
"So the others have been telling me for years." He rested his back against the wall. "Did you seek me out, lady, or is it lucky chance that you found me?"   
  
"Both, actually. I had thought you would be down with the others in the practice ring. Bors is giving Gawain quite a thrashing, or so I heard."   
  
"Bors would give his own mother quite a thrashing if it meant he got to drink afterwards. They're high-spirited for want of a good fight, so they fight with one another. No harm is intended."   
  
"I hadn't thought it was. Why are you not with them?"   
  
That was the question, was it not? Why did he spend so much time in silent contemplation, watching Vigdis hunt or sharpening his blades? There had been a time when not a night would go by that he couldn't be found carousing with the lads, raising mugs of ale in Arthur's honor and bedding the pretty young barmaids who served them.   
  
Perhaps that was it. Perhaps he didn't want to suffer the questions of why he didn't wink at the barmaids anymore.   
  
"I was in need of quiet, my lady," he said to fill the silence. "Camelot is big, but solitude is hard to come by."   
  
Guinevere nodded with a sigh. "Well I know that," she agreed, looking past his shoulder towards the forest beyond the wall.   
  
There was a pause, and Lancelot could tell she was trying to marshal herself to speak, so he did not say anything to break the silence.   
  
Finally, she looked down to him again. "I had come to beg a favor of you," she said. "I had hoped to go riding today, it being such fine weather. Arthur is patrolling the outposts, but he would be mortified if he found I had gone out alone, though he knows I can care for myself." An affectionate grin touched her lips, then was gone. "I was hoping you would accompany me."   
  
Lancelot blinked, and stood up straighter. "I-"   
  
"I understand if you would prefer more time alone," Guinevere was quick to add. "It can be difficult to come by. I can go ask one of the others, if you would like." And without waiting for an answer she turned on her heel to head back to the stairs.   
  
"Guinevere!"   
  
She turned back to him, dark eyes unreadable.   
  
Lancelot inclined his head to her. "It would be my honor to accompany you," he said.   
  
For a moment, a new smile lit her face. Not the tender smile of a moment before when thinking of Arthur, but something entirely different. It turned Lancelot's knees to water. Then, as quickly as it came, it was gone.   
  
"I will meet you in the stables, sir," she told him, then bowed her head in acknowledgement and made her way down the stairs.   
  
Which was how Lancelot found himself, half an hour later, riding through the forest astride his black steed Perun beside Guinevere's white walking mare Andraste. The timber had been cleared somewhat in the years since Arthur's court settled at Camelot, as villagers from across Britannia came to build their homes at the base of the fort, in the shadow of Hadrian's Wall. Gone were the menacing shadows, replaced by sun-dappled pools of light. The russet foliage of previous autumns crackled under their horses' hooves as the pair made their way through the trees.   
  
"It has been a glorious summer," Guinevere said, taking in the forest with an appreciative eye. "The rain has kept itself at bay."   
  
"Ay, save for the storms."   
  
Guinevere laughed. "Were there no storms in Sarmatia, Lancelot? Always you make it sound as though you only encountered such weather in my country."   
  
Lancelot tilted his head in admission, his own eyes running over the straight black trunks of the trees as they passed. "There were storms in Sarmatia, yes. But when it rained in Sarmatia, you always knew the sun would return. Here, I can never quite be sure."   
  
The queen laughed again, and Lancelot felt a cord in his chest shred and fall to pieces. She had a beautiful laugh. It was only rivaled by her smile, which she turned on him full force, dimples and all.   
  
"Well it has returned today, and we are the better for it, because it allows us to spend this time together," she told him. "I for one am glad of the company."   
  
Lancelot nodded his head as he tried to think of an intelligent thing to say. Of all the women he had ever known, only Guinevere could tie his tongue in knots. When they weren't sniping at each other, he was always at a loss for words. "I too," he decided after far too much debate, and could have slapped himself for the bland statement.   
  
They rode in companionable silence for several minutes, but Lancelot could tell there was much on the queen's mind. Her smooth brow was furrowed, and she was continually shifting the reins in her hands. Several times she seemed prepared to speak to him, but then would think better of it and go back to her pensive silence.   
  
At last, she sighed and turned to him. "Lancelot, might I ask you a question?"   
  
Lancelot smiled and bowed his head. "Of course, my lady."   
  
"You may think it a bit personal."   
  
"We are friends, are we not? I will not be offended."   
  
Guinevere nodded and looked away, casting her eyes forward between her horse's ears. "Very well." She was silent for a moment. Then, finally, "Have you any children, Lancelot?"   
  
The question took him by surprise, and for a moment Lancelot couldn't think to speak. When his voice at last returned, he nodded. "Yes," he admitted. "Yes, I have."   
  
"How many?"   
  
The line of questioning was making his cheeks flame with color. "I… am not entirely sure," he confessed. "Several I am aware of." A smile came unbidden to his lips. "One I have met personally. A strong lad, named Brennus. He lives near Londinium. The spitting image of me, I cannot deny." He chuckled. "Though I would never tell that to the woman's husband."   
  
Guinevere smiled slightly. "So you have slept with married women?" she asked.   
  
Lancelot cleared his throat, aware that he had stumbled into awkward territory. "I have slept with many women, married and unmarried alike." This was not helping him in her eyes, he was sure.   
  
"And this is not...bothersome to you?"   
  
He thought about it for a moment before answering. "I do not simply bed any woman, without thought," he explained. "But husband's leave to fight, and sweethearts are not always faithful. I like to think I provide companionship to lonely women."   
  
"And when there are children involved? Does it not bother you that you have children you have never seen, never spoken to?"   
  
Lancelot took several minutes before answering. "I am a knight," he said carefully. "Any given day I might be living come daybreak and dead come dusk. What good would I be to a child as a father? What would I give the mother save heartache?"   
  
"Then you worry about mortality." It was not a question.   
  
The scar on his chest twinged as if in answer, and he flinched. "I have stood at the very precipice of death," he said quietly. "Mortality is always with me."   
  
"I worry about it as well," she murmured, as though she hadn't heard him; as though she were lost in her own myriad thoughts. "But not my own. Were I to die tomorrow, the world would be unchanged. But Arthur..."   
  
Lancelot looked down, focusing on where his hands held the reins. "You needn't worry for Arthur," he said quietly. "He is too rugged to die."   
  
"No man is immortal," Guinevere countered, sounding slightly panicked beneath her otherwise composed demeanor. "All men die." Suddenly her eyes widened, and she looked at him as though understanding for the first time what she was saying. "Oh...Lancelot, I am sorry..."   
  
He shook his head, dismissing her apology. "Unnecessary," he said. "After all, I am not dead." The scar on his chest flamed again with phantom pain and he closed his eyes, setting his jaw and forcing his body to loosen.   
  
"Nevertheless, it was thoughtless of me." She reached out and laid a hand on his arm, bringing both horses to a stop. He raised his head and saw that she was looking at him with tears in her eyes.   
  
His heart lurched in his chest. "Please, Guinevere," he said, laying his hand over hers. "Please don't cry. I am not worth your tears."   
  
Guinevere grimaced and turned her face away, eyes squeezed shut. "Lancelot… I cannot help but cry." She pulled her hand away and would not look at him. He saw her shoulders shake with quiet sobs.   
  
"Why such tears, my queen?" he asked softly. "I know it is the height of selfishness to believe they are all for me."   
  
The young woman turned to look at him again, her eyes red and cheeks glistening with tears. "Dear Lancelot," she said huskily. "We came so close to losing you with Tristan and Dagonet. I cried rivers by your bedside."   
  
He wanted to reach out and take her hand, but resisted the urge, unsure how she would react. "That was three years ago, Guinevere," he reminded her quietly.   
  
She closed her eyes and lowered her head, fresh tears washing down her cheeks with the action. "Lancelot," she whispered, voice hoarse, "I fear I must ask you something now which may damage the friendship I hold so dear. Yet I cannot in good conscience leave the question unasked."   
  
Lancelot frowned. "Then by all means ask, my lady, if it spares you the suffering I see written so plainly on your face."   
  
She turned moist eyes to him, smiled a hopeless smile, and asked, "My dear Lancelot...will you lay with me?"   
  
***  
  
After the battle of Badon Hill, Tristan lay dead and Lancelot, it seemed, would soon follow. Guinevere had found him felled on the battlefield, a Saxon arrow buried in his chest, blood bubbling on his lips. She had thought him surely dead, until she heard the wet gurgle of his breath. Arthur had called it a miracle.   
  
Weeks he had drifted between consciousness and oblivion, and Guinevere was a rock at his bedside. He had fought to defend her, and had nearly given up his life in the process. She could not bear to leave his side lest he awake and wonder why it was he still lived. So she had waited, and she had wept, and she had pleaded with gods and spirits alike to save the good man's life.   
  
When at last he opened his eyes, a month after the battle and pale as milk, she had sobbed harder than ever before in her short life. She had vowed that day never again to cause him pain.   
  
Which is why what followed broke Guinevere's heart.   
  
First Lancelot blinked. Then he gaped. Then he narrowed his eyes and danced his horse away so he could turn the creature perpendicular to her own mount and stare at her head on, eyes accusatory.   
  
"What did you just ask me?" he demanded, all kindness gone from his voice, replaced with cold steel.   
  
Guinevere did not move Andraste to match him. Instead, she stayed still in the saddle and repeated her request. "Please, Lancelot. I beg you, for the future of this country: lay with me."   
  
"My lady, you go too far."   
  
"Not far enough," she argued, voice broken. "Lancelot, I do not ask out of self-interest or desire. I do this for my people! Please!" The knight had begun to turn Perun back the way they had come. He paused at her exclamation, but did not look at her.   
  
"Please, Lancelot," she begged. "Have you been deaf to the whispers? For they have been a TUMULT in my ears. They say I am barren; they say I am a dark witch. They say Arthur is cursed by the gods of a hundred faiths, and that he has signed pacts with devils that I should be used for aught else but demon spawn. Unrest grows in Camelot - the people grow restless, waiting for an heir. An heir I cannot give them, for Arthur cannot give a child to me!" Lancelot glared at her, but she continued on. "You have children, Lancelot. Gawain, Galahad. Bors most certainly! But does Arthur? Have you ever met a child of Artorius? You know him best of all, Lancelot. You have seen him take women to his bed, yet you have never known a child to come from any such union. Is there nothing suspicious about that? Do you turn a blind eye and call it COINCIDENCE? For I do not have that luxury! The people of my country look to me to guard their safety, and until Arthur is given a legitimate heir, that safety is forfeit! Any warlord may come along at anytime and claim this land as his own. I am queen, yes, but I am not Arthur. Only the blood of Artorius can hold this land together." She shook her head helplessly. "But there will be no children of his line. I would gladly take the blame if I were the only one to endure the pain. But Arthur suffers day by day, and it is whittling away at his strength. One day he will falter, and what will we do then? WHAT, Lancelot?"   
  
He had not looked at her during her entire dissertation, but now Lancelot turned his head and fixed her with a dagger stare. "What would you have me do, then?" he growled. "Beget a bastard on my best friend's wife, and pass it off as a proper prince?"   
  
Guinevere raised her chin. "Yes."   
  
Lancelot snorted and nudged Perun with his heels. "Good day, lady," he said curtly as the horse began to move away.   
  
"I see how you look at me!"   
  
The horse stopped.   
  
Guinevere swallowed, then continued. "In the corridors," she said. "At dinner. In the courtyard when you gaze up at my window and think I do not see you." She turned Andraste ever so slightly so she could look more comfortably at his back. "I am not so neglectful as to forget that night in the snow when I bathed in the caravan and found your eyes in the dark." She tilted her head. "No one has ever looked at me that way, before or since. Not even Arthur. Eyes so sad, so hungry...I believe you knew I was meant for another." She paused, and when he said nothing, she added, "Let us imagine tonight is that night. I will be yours, Lancelot. All and only yours."   
  
The knight was quiet, and the silence stretched on through interminable minutes, during which Guinevere could hardly think to breathe. When at last he spoke, it was in a hushed whisper.   
  
"You ask me to betray my closest friend." Lancelot did not turn; he spoke the words over his shoulder. "You ask me to take all that he has given me - the trust, the loyalty, the honor - and throw it aside as little more than garbage. You are the QUEEN, Guinevere. You are his WIFE."   
  
"You have slept with married women before..."   
  
"Nameless women!" He turned Perun now and stared at her with burning eyes. "Nameless women with faceless husbands! Arthur is my FRIEND. My BROTHER!"   
  
Guinevere watched him, and felt a remarkable calm settle over her. As if another person were speaking, she heard herself say, "Arthur is king, and I am his queen. The people of this country look to us to keep it whole against the Saxons. If that means I must sacrifice my dignity, and yes, my faithfulness to Arthur, then so be it."   
  
"But the child will not be his!"   
  
"No one need ever know."   
  
"It would be found out!"   
  
"Would you tell the secret?"   
  
"Don't you LOVE him?"   
  
The question stabbed her in the belly and twisted the knife. A pain as real as any she had suffered in battle assaulted her ribs, constricting her lungs, and for a moment she couldn't speak. "More than breath," she managed to whisper, fresh tears filling her eyes. "And I will not watch his reign fall to pieces when I can keep it whole."   
  
Edging Andraste forward, Guinevere came alongside Lancelot and gazed into his bewildered eyes. "We both of us love Arthur, Lancelot," she murmured. "And I cannot believe an act done in the name of love is wrong."   
  
Then, quietly nudging the sedate mare into a trot, she made her way back to Camelot, leaving him alone with his thoughts in the golden afternoon sun.   
  
***  
  
The rest of the day passed uneventfully. Guinevere spent the remainder of the afternoon practicing her archery and playing with Bors' many children. She was determined to be a good mother, should she ever be blessed with a child, and Bors' "little bastards" were where she intended to cut her eye teeth.   
  
For the second night in a row she took dinner in her chambers, wishing to avoid Lancelot's company as much as possible, knowing full well her absence would spark any number of rumors. No doubt much of that gossip would wonder if she had fallen ill due to an unexpected pregnancy. The thought put her off her appetite entirely, and she threw her dinner down the latrine.   
  
A highlight to being queen was she could bathe anytime she wished in a private tub, which was located in an annex of her main room. If ever a day had called for a good long bath, it was this one. Her maidservants bustled around, heating the water and scenting it with flower petals. Once it was ready, she stripped out of her clothes and sank into the steaming tub, moaning softly as the warmth soaked into her bones.   
  
Drifting between a half-doze and wakefulness, Guinevere could not say how much time she spent in the bath. She surely would have stayed longer, however, had she not heard a noise from her bedroom.   
  
Immediately she snapped to attention, sitting up in the tub and staring at the door to the annex. "Bryngelda?" she called, brow furrowed. "Is that you?"   
  
No answer.   
  
"Arthur?" She slowly started to rise from the tub. Arthur was not expected back until the end of the week, at least. "Is that you, Arthur?"   
  
Stepping out of the bath, she scooped up her cloak and wrapped it around her wet body. "If that is you, Merlin, you are entirely unwelcome," she muttered as she edged toward the door. Laying a hand on the knob, she turned it slowly...   
  
...then flung it open!   
  
A man stood before her fireplace, a black silhouette against the orange flames. He was staring at the Badon Hill tapestry, hands clasped behind his back. "It seems like only yesterday, does it not?" he asked, as though it were not at all strange that he should be in her room uninvited.   
  
Guinevere felt her knees turn to willow branches at the sound of his voice. "Lancelot..." she murmured.   
  
The knight didn't turn around. He kept his eyes firmly planted on the tapestry. "That day, I was not fighting for Rome. I was not fighting for you, nor your woad kinsmen. I was not even fighting for myself. I fought for Arthur. Only Arthur could have convinced me to throw in my lot with a hopeless cause against overwhelming odds. It was what he had been doing my entire life."   
  
Guinevere watched as Lancelot turned slowly to face her. He was backlit by the firelight, and his eyes were a mask of shadows. "A man like that is larger than life," he continued. "It seems there is nothing he cannot do. And now you come to me and tell me there IS something he cannot do. Then you tell me I can fix that flaw; that I can somehow make it right. But how does a man step into the shoes of a legend?"   
  
He paused, and Guinevere wasn't sure if he was expecting an answer. When the silence stretched on, she decided to give him one. "Arthur is a man like any other," she murmured, tightening the cloak around her naked form and walking slowly towards him. "And like any man, he is imperfect. But he does not have the indulgence of anonymity. All eyes are upon him, and so he must be seen to be flawless, or else he will appear weak."   
  
Lancelot's face was growing clearer now as Guinevere's eyes adjusted to the firelight. "The man does not know the meaning of weakness," the knight murmured. From the tone of his voice, he seemed to put himself on the other side of the scale.   
  
"All men know weakness," she whispered, drawing abreast of him and gazing up into his dark eyes. "Those we consider heroes simply learn to overcome it."   
  
He was struggling with his voice. Guinevere watched his eyes steal down her body then up again, coming to rest at last on her eyes. She laid herself open to him, hiding nothing in her gaze, letting him sense the trust she held for him; the friendship; the secret fantasies she'd dreamt since their first meeting years ago.   
  
"I thought I was immune to weakness," he whispered at last, and she drank in his voice as she fell into his eyes. "Then I met an injured woad stripling with hair black as midnight and broken fingers, and I was vulnerable. I knew I could not have you; Arthur cradled you too close to his heart for me to believe you could be mine. Yet I wanted you nonetheless. I watched you with him, saw how you touched him..." A shiver passed down his body, and Guinevere laid a hand on his chest to calm him.   
  
"There are days I wish that arrow had slain me on the grass of Badon Hill," he murmured. "Then I would not have to see you day to day in the arms of the man I call brother; always in reach, but ever beyond my grasp."   
  
Guinevere felt her heart fracture a hairsbreadth as she watched his eyes flick to the side to avoid her gaze. "I am within your compass now, Lancelot," she whispered, moving closer.   
  
"You are Arthur's wife."   
  
"I am a woman who has loved you since I first saw your face." He looked at her, surprise registering in his eyes, and she reached up to touch his cheek. "Do you think you are the only one here who is unrequited? I knew my destiny when Arthur took me from that pit. But Fate is a cruel mistress: she gave me my destiny, and taunted me with a dream." Stroking her fingers down his jaw, she moved in and laid a kiss on his Adam's apple, feeling it bob against her mouth. A shaky sigh ebbed past her lips, and she leaned heavily against him.   
  
"You taste like summer," she whispered, pressing her forehead into his shoulder.   
  
A moment passed, and then she felt the glorious sensation of his fingers combing through her hair while his other arm wound around her waist, pulling her tight against him. "Do you dream of me, Guinevere?" he murmured into her hair.   
  
"Every night."   
  
"Do you think of me when you are with Arthur?"   
  
She swallowed, and shook her head. "No." Raising her head, she gazed into his face. "I think of you when I am alone."   
  
The air between them was hot from the fire and their mingled breath. The intensity of Lancelot's gaze seared into Guinevere's mind, emblazoning itself in letters five leagues high across her memory:   
  
I LOVE YOU.   
  
The moment was ripe, and Lancelot plucked it.   
  
His lips found hers, and light exploded behind the queen's eyes. She couldn't see or taste or hear or smell anything beyond the pressure of his mouth against hers. Moaning with the pent-up enchantment of three years in the shadows, Guinevere twined her arms around his neck, burying her fingers in his hair and pulling him tighter against her lips. Lancelot responded in kind, pressing his tongue to the juncture of her lips, seeking entry. She let him in willingly, and felt tears of suppressed joy sting her eyes as her tongue slid past his in the immortal duel of lovers young and old.   
  
When at last they separated, Guinevere panted against his chest. Tears mingled with laughter as she pressed even closer to his lean body. "I fear this is all a dream," she managed to say. "It is too much as I imagined it would be."   
  
"We have barely begun," he said with a smile.   
  
She raised her head and gazed into his eyes. "You will stay?"   
  
Lancelot nodded. "What we do is not done for ourselves," he murmured, stroking his thumb over her cheekbone. "We do this for love of Arthur. But as Merlin said when he married you, you and Arthur are one, Guinevere. So what I do for love of him, I do equally for love of you." He leaned forward and kissed her once beneath each eye, tasting her tears.   
  
Guinevere cleaved to him like a tree in a flood, terrified her emotions would knock her senseless. "I have wished for this, Lancelot," she whispered shakily as he lifted her into his arms. "For so long I have dreamt of it. If only the circumstances were not so dire…"   
  
"Shhh...No more tears, Guinevere," he murmured, nuzzling her nose as he carried her towards the bed. "Tonight you are all and only mine, and I intend to love you a lifetime before the sun rises."   



	2. Chapter 2

_"Lift your eyes and see the glory,_  
Where the circle of life is drawn,  
See the never-ending story,  
Come with me to the Gates of Dawn..." 

_~"Gates of Dawn" by Karen Matheson ~_

 

Guinevere's bed was the biggest in the entire fortress of Camelot. It was wide enough to fit three grown men comfortably abreast, and was covered in a crimson heap of warm woolen blankets to guard against the evening chill. She had often joked with Arthur that he was a fool to give his slight-figured wife such an enormous bed. Arthur would just smile in his warm, guileless manner, and say, "I plucked you from a prison and brought you back to the light. Do you think I would let you sleep on anything less than a cloud?"

No, Guinevere though sternly as Lancelot carried her to the bed. I will not think of Arthur now. I must not think of Arthur.

The lean knight placed one knee on the edge of her feather-stuffed mattress and set her down carefully in the center of the bed. Sitting on the edge of the bed himself, his eyes caressed her face. "I thought I knew beauty until I saw your face," he murmured. "Then I knew that all I had experienced until that morning was nothing but shadows to your sun."

It was not so hard to put Arthur's face from her mind when Lancelot was looking at her like that and speaking to her in poetry. "I did not know you could speak so sweetly, Lancelot," she said coyly, turning onto her side and drawing her knees up beneath the cloak that still shielded her nudity.

A familiar cocky grin spread across the knight's face, and his eyes twinkled. "Did you think we were all so coarse of speech as Bors?"

"I have heard you say a fair number of vulgarities in your time, Lancelot. Do not deny it."

"If we are pointing fingers, my lady, then where cursing is concerned, you beat me on all counts."

Guinevere laughed, and it felt good to break the atmosphere of tension that hung around them like a heavy fog. They gazed at each other for several minutes, neither speaking, reveling in the fact of the other's presence.

"I am naked beneath this cloak," Guinevere said at last, eyes sparkling.

Lancelot raised an eyebrow. "Are you indeed?" he asked. "I had wondered."

"I presume you are naked beneath those clothes?"

Lancelot glanced down at his black leather ensemble, then back up and nodded in defeat. "Alas, yes. You have caught me out, my lady."

"Have I? I am not so sure." Propping herself up on one elbow, Guinevere nodded to his leather vest. "I'm afraid before passing judgment I shall need to see more evidence."

"You wish me to remove my clothes, lady?"

Guinevere grinned and felt her eyes sparkle. "How else am I to find out if you are naked underneath?"

Lancelot grinned. "Then in the name of justice..." Pushing himself to his feet, he stood beside the bed and began to undress.

Guinevere let her head fall gently to the pillow as she watched him with tender eyes. Lancelot did not look at her as he disrobed; his entire concentration was fixed on unbuckling buckles, untying knots, and unhooking hooks. First went his woven-leather vest, then the black linen shirt beneath. She could not resist a small gasp when he stripped off the latter item. The knight's body was a map composed of scars and smooth skin, with a circle of red puckered flesh on his chest indicating the place where the Saxon arrow had almost claimed his life.

Lancelot looked up at her inhalation. "Afraid of what you see, my lady?" he asked quietly, giving her a half smile.

Guinevere raised her eyes to meet his gaze. "I would that you could tell me the genesis of each scar, Lancelot," she murmured. "They are part of your skin, and so know you most intimately. I can only scratch the surface."

"Guinevere, the scars I have scored into my heart for want of you are the deepest in my arsenal."

"Lancelot..."

"Shhh...I said no more tears, recall?" He smiled, and there was no sorrow in the action. "Let us speak of happier things." He sat on the edge of the bed to unlace his boots.

Guinevere couldn't resist reaching out to run a finger down his spine, and was rewarded with a shiver from the man beside her. "Are all of your clothes black?" she asked absently, tracing her fingertip around a circular scar above his hip that could only have been the work of an arrow shaft.

"I find it economical," he remarked. "It saves on laundering. Black hides blood quite well, and what the washerwoman can't scrub out remains hidden."

Another night, with another knight, shrouded in blue darkness, fingering his scars...

Shaking her head, Guinevere sat up and slid closer to Lancelot. Resting her hands on his shoulders, she tilted her head forward and laid a kiss on the knob at the top of his spine. He immediately relaxed under her hands, leaning his head back so that his curly mop of hair tickled her forehead. "Were I a Christian man, I would call you an angel," he murmured, as her lips slowly worked across his shoulders, from one side to the other.

"And as you are not a Christian?" she purred, stroking her fingers down his bare arms as her lips tasted his skin.

"I can only describe you in terms I know, and those are too bloody."

Guinevere leaned further forward, resting her chin on his shoulder, and gazed at the knight's profile. His eyes were closed, visualizing. "I have fought with you on the field of battle," she murmured, her fingers gliding over the washboard grooves of his ribs; he did not eat enough. "I know the beauty of blood."

The knight sighed; she felt his lungs deflate beneath her hands. "I have images only. Words...Words are too solid for an ethereal beauty such as you possess." He turned his head, and now his eyes were open and watching her with that clear gaze which could slice her soul like parchment paper under a knife. "But I will try."

Moving slowly, with the leisurely precision of a cat, Lancelot turned on the bed until he was facing her; one knee on the edge of the mattress, one foot planted on the floor. Her hands remained steady throughout the shift, and now they came to rest again on his shoulders, while the knight's hands fell to her waist, kneading her hips through the cloak. They were nose to nose, lips a hairsbreadth apart. She breathed and tasted him.

"I have seen an arrow sail like a falcon to strike an enemy across a field of smoke," he murmured, and she felt him begin to tilt her back toward the bed. "You are that arrow's flight. I have known the light of the sun to split on the edge of a sword and shatter into slivers of gold. You are those shards. I have watched armies charge together like waves on the sea to crash like surf on the shore, and the ground shakes." Her head came to rest on the mattress, and he hovered above her, lit like a torch from behind by the orange glow of the fire. He was breathtaking.

"You are that convergence," he whispered. "You move me."

Guinevere couldn't breathe. Breathing required movement, and any movement might break this single precious, perfect moment, with Lancelot above her, making love to her with his voice. She was aware that somewhere during his description, her lips had parted, and somewhere else, tears had come to her eyes. She was aware that all that stood between their skin was a heavy woolen cloak and a pair of leather breeches. She was aware that he was waiting for her to do something, but she could think of nothing to say.

Finally, with infinite care, she dropped one hand from his shoulder and pushed herself up on her elbow so that their lips were once again merely a breath apart. "I have known a man to fall on a bloody field of carnage, and live," she whispered, throat burning, eyes searching his face. "There is no greater beauty in my eyes than the rise and fall of his chest as he breathes." Tilting her head forward, she slid further beneath his body and pressed her lips tenderly to the scar on his chest.

***

Lancelot gasped as her lips touched him, the scar tissue still sensitive after all these years. There was no pain; a warmth suffused his flesh as her mouth loved his body's flaw.

At last, he lowered his head to nuzzle the crown of her head. "Guinevere."

The queen pulled back slowly, raising her head to look again into his eyes. "Lancelot?"

He didn't speak. He sat up, gazing down at her, and ran his hand along the edge of her cloak. Guinevere didn't move, her eyes remaining fixed on his face, smoldering like live coals. "No parcel has ever been so dear to me," Lancelot murmured, rubbing his thumb against the hem of the mantle. "Forgive me, Guinevere, but I want to tear this wrapping off with the fury of a hundred hounds."

A smile tilted her lips, and her eyes danced in the firelight. "Why must that be a forgivable offense?" she asked. "For I see no fault in it."

Lancelot grinned slowly, and slid his hand into the dark shadows beneath the cloak. The young queen jumped and gasped as his fingers brushed over her smooth belly, and he felt his growing arousal begin to harden at the inhalation. "I have just realized, Guinevere, that while you required me to undress to prove my nudity, I merely accepted your word on the matter." He cocked an eyebrow and circled his forefinger around her navel, still hidden from view by the fabric barrier. "I think that is a gross miscarriage of justice, don't you?"

Guinevere gave him a frustrated glare. "Might I remind you that you are not yet entirely undressed," she replied; a little breathless, Lancelot noted with satisfaction.

"Easily rectified," he said, with a nod of acknowledgement. "But you can tell from what I have removed so far that I am most likely naked beneath my breeches." His eyes sparkled at the obviousness of the statement. "But I can tell no such thing about your state of dress beneath this cape, madame."

"Of course you can, you fool," she snapped, obviously wanting more of his touch but determined not to ask for it. "You've got your hand on me." She would fight him every step of the way, now that he had taken control of the situation. Stubborn as a mule. His arousal hardened.

"It might be a trick."

"A trick? Are you implying I have another woman underneath this cloak?"

He raised his eyebrows and grinned wider. "That WOULD be something."

Guinevere huffed in frustration and sat up. "You are a lecherous lout," she chastised waspishly.

"The very definition of a man, I think you'll find."

"What is it you want from me?"

"Why would you imagine I want anything, my queen?"

"Oooh...! Curse you, Lancelot, I know what you want. You want me to tear off this cloak, fling myself back on the pillows and cry Ravage me, sir knight!" She glared at him. "Am I not right?"

Lancelot grinned at her, but said nothing. Two attractive spots of color were rising on her cheeks, and he was enjoying the view.

"Say something!"

"You're beautiful."

She blinked, and now the color on her cheeks spread down her neck. "Do not try to distract me, Lancelot," she said, sounding a little less sure.

"How is stating the truth a distraction?" He slid closer, dipping in to nuzzle the juncture of her shoulder and neck.

"Oooh...," she breathed, sounding a little shaky. Then her shoulders stiffened and she put her hands on his chest, pushing him back slightly so she could glare into his eyes. "I do not allow any man to tell me what to do," she said firmly.

"I am telling you to do nothing. I am merely describing you at large." He leaned forward again, and this time he kissed the spot he had nuzzled a moment before. The queen was cracking; soon she would break.

"Lancelot...," Guinevere protested weakly, but she didn't push him away this time.

"I would very much like to kiss more of you than just your neck, Guinevere," he murmured, kissing behind her ear.

"Nothing prevents you," she breathed, arching her neck to allow him easier access.

Lancelot tugged at the cloak. "There is this..."

"Take it off, then."

"No..." He nipped at her ear, and was rewarded with a soft gasp.

"Why not?" He was pleased to hear that there was an edge of desperation to her tone.

"Because I would like to see you do it." He moved forward to nibble at her jugular, and felt her moan vibrate against his lips.

"No man-"

"-can tell you what to do. I do not claim to try. I merely...suggest." He pecked at her collarbone.

"A clever ruse." Her arms snaked around his neck, pulling him closer, tilting her head back to bare her throat. "I know your aim."

"Would it be such a failure of your pride to let me see your body?"

"Would it be such a failure of your pride to undress me yourself?"

Lancelot pulled back and gazed into her eyes. "Pride is irrelevant," he murmured, reaching up to stroke her hair. "If I remove your cloak, I will see you only a piece at a time. If I watch you remove it yourself, it will be like sunrise on the sea: awe-inspiring."

Guinevere bit her lip; an oddly childlike action for the largely resolute young woman. "Always you refer to me as though I am the sun," she said quietly. "Why?"

"Simplicity itself, Guinevere. I walk in darkness most hours of the day. I only walk in light when I am with you."

She watched him quietly for a minute, and Lancelot didn't look away. He felt her hand stroke his arm.

"Sit back," she murmured, and kissed him gently. Lancelot lingered at her lips for a moment, then obeyed, moving away slightly.

Guinevere lowered her eyes and fingered the embroidered clasp of her cloak. The voluminous woolen cape surrounded her with shadows, so that even where it should have shown through to her flesh, everything was shrouded in black. "I have never been compared to the sun," she murmured, her fingers stroking the clasp idly. "To midnight, yes. To a raven in the snow." She smiled slightly. "To an angel." She raised her eyes, and Lancelot felt his stomach flutter when he saw tears on her lashes. "But never to the sun. Never to light. You say you walk in darkness without me, Lancelot, yet to all others I am the epitome of shadow." She smiled again, wider this time. "We are both creatures of the night."

With a deft motion, her fingers unhooked the ornately embroidered clasp, and she slipped it off her shoulders, stopping so that it demurely covered her breasts and all below. Then, very slowly, she let the cloth slide down her arms, revealing inch by inch of her pale golden skin. Pert, round breasts and dusky pink nipples; the blue-black shadows that highlighted her sensuous waist; and lower, as the cloak pooled on the bed around her hips, the tempting V of shadow that led to the junction of her legs.

Lancelot watched unblinking as Guinevere revealed her body to him, and he could not speak for a minute after, captivated by each ripple and curve. He had seen much of her skin in battle, when she wore her traditional garb of woven leather that left little to the imagination. But to see her now, nude in his sight, watching him watch her with eyes like green evening, raven hair framing her face like a portrait...It took his breath away and left him speechless.

"Are you disappointed, sir knight?" she asked after a minute, cocking her head as she kept her eyes locked on his face.

Lancelot blinked, and raised his eyes to find her gaze. "You are," he finally managed, "the fairest woman who has ever walked this earth. Man shall never know your equal. The Greeks wrote of Helen, and they thought her beautiful. But were Helen of Troy ever to meet you on the paths of this world, she would hang her head with envy."

Guinevere gave him a phantom smile, and chills ran down his spine as she tipped forward onto her hands and knees and crawled across the short distance that separated them on the bed. Bumping her nose against his lips, she whispered, "You say beautiful things, Lancelot, but sometimes you talk too much."

A grin slowly suffused his face. With a lightning move he swooped forward, captured her lips with his own, and they tumbled backward onto the bed.

***

Guinevere nearly wept with the magnificent pressure of his bare skin on her breasts as he pressed her into the blankets, grinding their lips together in an impassioned frenzy. Three years she had dreamt of this. Three years she had imagined the exhilarating friction of his ribs on her nipples, the unrestrained slide of his belly on hers. Clawing at his back with unbridled desire, she felt tears stinging her eyes as he tried to pull his mouth away and she tried to hold him still.

"No...!" she begged, feeling like a weak fool and not caring a whit.

"Time, Guinevere...!" Lancelot panted, as she buried her fingers in his hair and tried to draw him back to her lips. "We have time!"

"There is no time!" she exclaimed in desperation. "I have waited so long for you...Do not make me, Lancelot...I CANNOT wait any longer!"

"Guinevere." The Sarmatian's voice was firm, and she stilled her manic limbs to watch him. He smiled at her, eyes peaceful. "Guinevere, I will not rush with you. You deserve far better than that." His smile broadened. "And I have waited, too."

He stood up.

HE STOOD UP.

Guinevere's eyes widened. "Where...!" she managed to gasp, sitting bolt upright and flinging out a hand toward him, to draw him back.

Lancelot raised a finger to his lips to indicate silence, and winked. Then, very deliberately, he turned his back.

Guinevere let herself lean back on her elbows, biting her lip with frustrated anticipation as he unbuckled his breeches and pushed them down his legs. A moan escaped her lips as she got a good view of his muscular backside - not bony like his ribs, but firm and sculptured, like the Roman statuettes Arthur displayed in his office. He was tanned a golden bronze from head to foot, which made her believe he spent more time out of his clothes than he let on.

He turned around, and of course her eyes strayed down to his nether regions.

"How do I equate?" he asked, noticing the path of her gaze.

Guinevere raised her eyes again - albeit unwillingly - and gifted him with a dazzling grin. She would never tell him how he stacked up to Arthur: it would be up to him to decide if it was because he was lacking, or because she didn’t want to inflate his sizable ego.

Sizable, perhaps, with VERY good reason...

He raised an eyebrow when she didn't speak. "Speechless, hmm?" he mused, kneeling on the edge of the bed again, falling forward and catching himself on his hands. His arms straddled her body as his chest pressed down on her, pushing her into the bed. "I tend to have that effect."

With that said, he bent his head and brushed a kiss over her bruised lips, then began to kiss along her jaw line and down her throat. Guinevere moaned and arched her neck, pushing her shoulders away from the bed as his mouth moved across her collarbone, leaving a trail of feathery kisses in its wake. His beard was coarse against her skin, sparking bolts of sensation where he kissed her. "You are a devil," she murmured as he ran the tip of his tongue teasingly between her breasts, making her whimper.

"I am not," he argued casually. "I am just an exceptionally good lover."

There was no debating that. His mouth knew exactly where to touch her. He grazed his teeth over her right nipple, making her gasp, then closed his mouth around the nubbin and she moaned with pleasure, burying her fingers in his hair and holding him tight against her body. Lancelot's other hand slid up her side to cup her other breast, kneading it firmly as his lips pulled at her sensitive skin.

"Oh...Lancelot, yes...," she panted, splaying the fingers of her free hand against the skin between his shoulder blades. "Mmm...yes...! Gah!" This last cry as his fingers tweaked her free nipple, twisting slightly and sending a jolt of white hot pleasure straight to her brain. Guinevere's legs twitched in sympathy, and she raised one knee to plant her foot on the back of his leg, rubbing the sole of her foot up and down his calf in delight.

When his mouth released her breast, she groaned with the loss, then melted again beneath his mouth as he began to move further south. Lancelot spread his calloused fingers against her hips and squeezed as his mouth made the circuit of her stomach. "You taste of wildflowers," he breathed against her belly, blowing into her navel.

Guinevere turned passion-glazed eyes downward to watch his progress. "I bathed in them for your sole pleasure," she teased dreamily, running her fingers through his hair.

"Indeed?" His teeth nipped at the ridge of her hip, then he ran his tongue quickly down the crease of her thigh towards the juncture of her legs. "Does the taste cover you everywhere?" His fingers skimmed either side of her mound, and Guinevere arched her back with a wordless cry and spread her legs wider at the sudden intrusion. She felt his hot breath on her moist center, and her breathing began to speed up in response.

Lancelot sighed contentedly. "I could live here," he murmured, kissing the inside of her thigh. "Though I've no doubt the others would question why I spent so much time between milady's legs."

Guinevere managed a breathless laugh. "How...can you joke at a time like this?" she asked, staring down her body at the top of his head.

He looked up, and his brown eyes glinted winsomely in the firelight. "What makes you believe I am joking?" With a teasing wink, he dipped his head again and slid his tongue inside her.

The movement came so suddenly, with such little warning, Guinevere couldn't hold in a small scream of pleasure. Her fingers spasmed, then clutched the blankets in a white-knuckled grip as his tongue made slow thrusts into her body. Two long fingers joined his tongue, spreading her wider and numbing all her other senses. There was nothing but touch now, and no other touch but that which the handsome knight was exerting on her lower body. She was vaguely aware of the cool air in the room as it touched the sweat forming on her skin, but all else was hazy shadows and the roaring sound of her own ragged breathing in her ears. Spreading her legs to the utmost, she flexed her hips rhythmically against his mouth, as her cheek rubbed against the blankets and her lungs ached.

Suddenly, he raised his head, removing his tongue from its sultry exploration and leaving her feeling empty and unfulfilled, save for the two fingers that still nestled in her body. "No...!" she exclaimed, eyes flying open to stare at him with bewildered despair.

Lancelot smiled at her, his lips glistening with her moisture. "Shhh, Guinevere," he soothed, stretching out beside her and leaning on his elbow. His face hovered over her own, and she was hypnotized by his radiant eyes. "I have not abandoned you. No need to fear."

Gently probing, he pushed a third finger in to join the other two inside her tight passage. Guinevere felt all air disappear as he began to pump his hand against her. Her eyes widened and she became aware of a high keening sound floating through the air. It was only for lack of a better explanation that she realized it was her own voice.

"You are so close, my queen," Lancelot murmured as if in a trance, his eyes unwavering as he kept the focus between them. "I can feel you. You are so ready to give in, to shatter."

Guinevere nodded, almost frantic, and raised a hand to run her nails down his chest. "Yes, Lancelot," she gasped, her body flexing in time with his hand. "Gods yes...!" She threw back her head and barely managed to swallow a scream as a FOURTH finger made its way into her body. She felt as though she was going to split at the seams, as the blessed pressure turned her body's rocking into frantic thrusts.

"Look at me," he murmured, sounding too calm to Guinevere's overwrought senses. She managed to drag her eyes down from the ceiling and found his face through the haze of her lust. His voice sounded calm, but the knight's eyes betrayed the tumult that was raging inside his body. "Keep your eyes with me, my queen." He said my queen as though it were a prayer. "Let me watch you. Please."

He needn't have said Please. Now that she was looking at him, she could not look away. With a guttural moan, she brought her hand up to clamp down on his shoulder, pulling him close so she could press her breasts into his chest. A familiar burn was building in her lower belly, growing like a wildfire. His fingers stretched her in uncommon ways, stroking at unusual angles, and she wanted to scream from the pleasure of it all. She saw sweat forming on his upper lip, felt a hard heat pressing into her thigh, and knew his arousal matched her own in all but expression. Darting out her tongue, she tasted his sweat, and mixed with it, the dusky salt of her own juices. Lancelot took the invitation and kissed her, a gentle touch of his lips on her own, in direct contrast to the furious pumping of his hand between her legs. Choosing that moment, he increased the speed of his thrusts to almost blinding force, and Guinevere finally allowed herself to scream into his mouth.

"Now?," he whispered against her lips, his eyes open as he drank her frenzied breath. "Will you gift me now, my queen?"

Guinevere nodded desperately, slid her hand down her body to grab his wrist, and pressed his hand into her as deep as it would go.

The fire in her belly broke loose, sending bolts of flame down her legs and up through her torso, and she jerked away from the bed with a powerful convulsion. "YessSSSSSSS!" she exulted as wave after wave of hot pleasure broke over her. She felt the muscles of her interior clutch around his fingers again...and again...and again. Through her sweat-drenched sight she saw Lancelot close his eyes and tighten his jaw, obviously trying to hold his own release in check. His breathing was ragged against her face.

After a long minute, Guinevere lay spent and trembling beside Lancelot on the bed, his fingers still nestled inside her. Occasionally he would move one of the digits and she would gasp as a quiet aftershock rippled through her humming body.

***

"Did I say before you were beautiful?" Lancelot murmured into Guinevere's hair.

The queen could do naught but mumble in response.

"I was wrong."

She raised her eyes, half-lidded and dreamy, and met his burning gaze.

"You are not merely beautiful," he whispered. "You ARE beauty. Helen of Troy pales like a snowdrop beside you. Venus herself bears your face."

Guinevere managed a weak smile, then summoned all her strength to raise a hand and cup his cheek. "Roman fairy stories, Lancelot," she murmured. "Neither of us are Roman." With a moan, she managed to roll herself onto her side and prop herself up on one elbow, so they were face to face and chest to chest. "And beauty means nothing where there is not love." Leaning in, she captured his lips in a sensuous kiss, her languid tongue meandering past his lips to do quiet battle with his own.

Lancelot moaned into her mouth. Slowly, he extricated his fingers from inside her body, and felt her whimper against his mouth in response, her legs rubbing together with the loss. The hot, almost painful arousal between his own legs was begging for release, but he was determined to keep his promise and not rush his time with her. He angled his hips toward her, hooking one of his legs between hers and pulling her closer.

"Mmmm..." Guinevere pulled her lips from his, and opened her eyes to smile lazily at him. "If I am Venus, who would you be?" She traced her fingers down his arm and took his wrist, slowly drawing his hand up her body. Keeping her eyes locked with his, she closed her mouth around his moist index finger, sucking gently. Her eyes closed slowly as her cheeks pulsed with her soft suction.

Lancelot's lips parted slightly as he watched her mouth nurse his finger. After a minute, she released the digit she held in her mouth and moved to the next one, giving it the same tender treatment. There was not enough air in the room; his breathing was shaky and raw. His free hand twitched in agony, desperate to pull her tight against him and bury his heat inside her moist interior.

At last, when she had stroked her tongue over all four slick fingers, she released his hand and opened her eyes again. "Have you decided what god you shall be?" she murmured.

Lancelot smiled. "I did not realize I was meant to think," he replied. "You were causing quite a distraction."

Guinevere laughed, then rocked them over so he was on his back and she was stretched out beside him. "If I am Venus," she murmured, trailing her fingers down his throat, "then you must be Mars." Her fingertips danced on the scar over his heart. "Mars, God of War."

"Mars, Venus' lover," he said softly in response. "They were a scandal."

She tilted her head and circled the scar with a fingertip. "They were in love."

"Were they?"

She sighed and threw her leg over his waist, sliding onto his body. Lancelot felt the dig of her ribs against his abdomen. "No, sir knight, you are not allowed to grow grim and pensive." Her hand stroked his face, and she whispered, "It does not suit your countenance. You were not made for pain."

Lancelot managed a self-derisive smile. "Pain is my constant companion."

Guinevere's eyes softened further, and slowly she sat up, so that her damp cleft pressed against his thighs. Lancelot swallowed and laid his hands on her hips.

"I would not cause you pain for all the world," she whispered, her hands massaging his shoulders. "Yet I know my very presence is often agony for you. I know for it is the same with me." Her thumbs stroked his collarbone. "I sit beside Arthur at the Round Table and laugh and smile and die inside, for I know you are at his left hand and forever out of my reach." Leaning forward, her hair draping like a curtain around their faces, she nuzzled his nose.

"Gods help me, Guinevere," Lancelot whispered, wrapping his arms around her waist. His erection pressed into her belly. "Tonight I ache like never before, because tonight at last I have you." His arms tightened. "I cannot bear to let you go again."

She gave him a shaky smile, and he felt rather than saw her tears as they dripped down her cheeks and onto his lips. "Yet you must," she whispered, voice choked. A kiss, then another whisper. "But not until morning, and the night is still young." Her face moved away, and she pressed a kiss to the side of his neck, then another to his Adam's apple. "Sit up," she whispered near his ear.

Lancelot forced his body upright, and Guinevere went with him, draping her arms over his shoulders and linking her hands behind his neck. Her knees were planted on the bed on either side of his legs. "Kneel," she whispered again, this time against his lips.

"As you wish," he said with a small smile. Pulling his legs out from between her thighs, he settled on his knees in front of her. They knelt on the bedclothes, stomach to stomach, his arms looped around her slender waist, her hands toying with his hair. "What do you wish of me now, my queen?"

Guinevere's answering smile was water to a dying man. "Only that you do not move." Her hands slid over his shoulders and down his chest, and she leaned forward, tilting her head to the right and kissing his bicep. Lancelot closed his eyes, enjoying the butterfly sensation of her lips on his skin.

Then he felt her warm, soft hand wrap around his swollen shaft, and he cried out, his eyes flying open.

Guinevere was grinning up at him, her eyes twinkling. "You are not the only one with crafty fingers, sir knight," she purred, then looked away again as her hand began to stroke him.

Lancelot loved women. He had been with cheap whores and expensive concubines, country lasses and village ladies, and each one had sated him equally. Some had lips like rubies, others had hair like flax or eyes the color of winter skies. But none of them had hands like Guinevere. Her fingers were tapered and slender, calloused on the tips from her expertise with the bow. They wrapped around his girth and squeezed him firmly, but not so tight as to drive him over the edge. His hips thrust toward her with each swift stroke of her hand along his length, and he let his head fall backward, baring his throat to the world in an unconscious signal of absolute trust as he made a guttural moan.

"We are more alike than either of us realize, Lancelot," she murmured, nuzzling his chest and darting her tongue out to taste his left nipple. He jumped. "Each of us is a slave to the touch, the sight, the sound and smell of the other." Her tongue ran over a ridge of pale skin on his left shoulder, the remnants of a misfired dagger in a battle long ago. Further down, her thumb made a swift circle around the head of his erection, and he jerked toward her, his lower body burning.

"Guinevere..." he gasped, raising his head and gazing at her with fiery eyes. He gnashed his teeth, sweat beading on his brow as he fought for control.

She looked up, her own eyes placid but glowing. "Do you need me, Lancelot?" she whispered.

"More than you can ever know." He could feel himself starting to lose the battle with his baser instincts, and pulled her tight against him with one arm, muscles corded like rope as he dug his fingers into the soft, giving flesh of her backside.

Guinevere gasped as the movement drove his shaft between her legs, but she did not let go, her fingers still pumping him as her juices made them slick. "Now, Lancelot?" she asked, echoing his question from earlier in the evening.

Lancelot nodded quickly. "Now, Guinevere," he panted. "I must let go inside you." He swallowed, his nails biting into her hip. "I WANT to."

Guinevere nodded. Kissing him tenderly, her free hand stole between their bodies to open herself for him. Then, with gentle grace, she edged his tip into her body, shuddering with fresh bliss as he entered her.

Explosions of color flared in front of Lancelot's eyes as the young woman slowly sank onto his shaft. Once she had him deep enough inside her body, she twined her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist, hooking her ankles against his tailbone. "I love you," she whispered shakily against his mouth.

"Oh, Gods, I love you," Lancelot moaned and pulled her forward, mashing their lips together as his hips thrust up, sinking his erection to the hilt inside her tight passage. And he began to move.

***

Guinevere screamed into his mouth as he filled her, a lance of blinding desire driving into her belly and leaving her breathless and winded. She grabbed Lancelot's shoulders, spreading her fingers as wide as she could against his arms and arching her back, her hips rocking in tandem with his. The room was spinning. If the pleasure she'd felt earlier had been a storm, this was a tidal wave.

"Lancelot...!" she gasped, as he moved his head forward to nip at her breasts and kiss her throat, his beard scraping against her sensitive flesh. "Yes...YES...!"

"My name...," he moaned, his fingers holding her hips with bruising force as he helped guide her up and down. "Say my name again, Guinevere..."

"Lancelot," she whispered, letting her head fall forward so they were forehead to forehead and she could look down into his passionate eyes. "Lancelot. My champion. My Lancelot..."

"Always yours, Guinevere," he panted. "Always..." Then his head lolled forward as his hips began to drive harder, and the world went dark as she rode him.

He was sharp where Arthur was solid; narrow where Arthur was broad. His fingers were longer and more slender, and his palms weren't quite so rough; unlike Arthur, Lancelot had not been born with a sword in his hand. Guinevere clung to him, pressing her cheek against his shoulder as that familiar heat built again in her loins. Wrapping her arms around his torso, she dug her fingernails into his back and felt him do the same with her hips. Marking each other - adding scars to those already visible, and those no one else could see. The morning would come and there would be only a memory of sweat and sex and sighs in the dark. But scars, despite the common myth, did not fade. Scars would always remain, even if they faded to invisibility; a reminder of past pain.

Better a tangible memory of pain than no memory at all.

"Yes...yes...YES... _YES... **YES**_...!" Guinevere begged, throwing her head back and letting the tears roll over her temples and into her ears. Why was she crying? Joy or sorrow?

Lancelot groaned against her shoulder, and she knew he was almost through. The knowledge of what they were doing - the low, seedy aspect of this beautiful moment - made her body spasm with sick pleasure. She felt him rubbing over and over across the deepest piece of her...

And suddenly, there was light. Everywhere, everywhere, light like a shower of stars. Her body was racked with sobs and tremors, and she ground her hips against him in an effort to keep the moment frozen in time.

She felt him jerk beneath her, felt his warmth inside her, heard him moan out her name. "Guinevere..."

Words were denied her. She leaned against his shoulder and wept as she rocked slowly on the waves of her fading climax. Had she a mirror to see them, crushed together on the bed, she would not have seen bodies. She would have seen two sculptured figures haloed in firelight, carved in basalt, holes in the shadows that led to deeper darkness. One was weeping, the other was silent. There was no space between them - no line of fire to indicate separation. They clung to each other like sparrows in a storm, tossed by a tempest not of their making, lost but together in the howling dark.  



	3. Chapter 3

It was raining. Out of the clear, star-studded sky a godly hand had conjured a summer storm, and it lashed the queen's window with rain-dipped fingers. Wind rattled the windowpane like an accusatory witness. The fire guttered in the hearth, and sharp-edged shadows jumped on the walls in tandem with the restless flames.

The lovers huddled together in the center of Guinevere's bed, their backs turned to the collective unrest around them. Neither spoke; silence had reigned for nearly an hour. The musky scent of their coupling still lingered on Lancelot's skin, and Guinevere nestled closer to him, breathing deeply as her lips pressed against his throat. It was foolish to believe the precious quiet would last, yet she savored it while she could.

"You must pray the child has your eyes."

His voice was soft, the vibration of his words against her lips a delicate hum. Closing her eyes, Guinevere kissed his throat and said nothing.

"For if the child has my eyes, Arthur will know." The familiar touch of fingertips under her chin tilted her face up, and the queen gazed at her knight. A soft, rueful smile curved his elegant lips. "They must be yours, or they must be his, and as the latter is impossible, we must pray for the former."

Her hand rose of its own volition to touch his lips. "My eyes," she murmured with a nod.

Lancelot kissed her fingertips, then reached up to take her hand from his lips with a squeeze. "Why so faraway and distant, my queen?" he asked quietly, eyes soft.

Guinevere sighed heavily and shook herself, her gaze clearing. "Because the gods have been cruel and made me love two men," she told him, squeezing his hand in return. "They have given me two men of equal valor and kindness, and bid me choose between them. Then when I had made the choice, given myself to one of them yet yearned still for the other, they throw me on the tempting block and shred me down to pieces." She could feel the emotion creeping into her voice, and ground her teeth in frustration. "I lie in this bed beside the man of my dreams who has haunted my nightmares since I married the king, and he tells me to pray our son has my eyes, so my husband will not know. But I ask you, Lancelot, TO WHOM SHOULD I PRAY? What gods but the gods of pain and misfortune will hear my prayers? They give me not a moment's rest, nor a minute's peace. Thinking, thinking, I am always THINKING! Weighing one option against another, always wondering if the choice I make is the right one." Tears blurred her eyes, and her throat burned. "Had I married you, Lancelot, how much pain would we have been spared? We would have been happy, you and I. We would not have been so plagued by tears."

Lancelot was silent for several long seconds, and Guinevere feared she had stepped too far. When at last he answered, his voice was a welcome sound. "Are you happy with Arthur?" he asked softly, stroking her knuckles with one calloused thumb.

Guinevere blinked. "Of course," she acknowledged.

"Yet you believe you would have been happier with me?"

"I..." She trailed off, uncertain.

"Guinevere, tell me this." Lancelot sat up, pulling her with him so they sat face to face. He clutched her hands in his blanketed lap, and stared into her eyes. "Tell me you believe you would be happier with me, and I swear by my swords, I will take you away this very night and we will live as shadows behind Arthur's sun. I will build you a castle of burnished stone, gathered by my own hands from the ocean's edge. I will raise armies in your defense, and navies, and cavalry, and I will guard you as the dearest treasure that ever my eyes beheld." He pulled her closer, pressing their foreheads tightly together, his dark eyes blazing with determination.

"You need only tell me my presence pleases you more than Arthur's," he whispered, "and you will never want for my touch again." He loosed her hands and clutched her face, his fingers a protective shield against her temples. "But you will no longer be queen...save to me."

Guinevere gazed back into his eyes, and knew the truth of what he said. There was fire in his fingertips as he stroked her jaw, and she knew a piece of him was willing her to take his offer and run like a doe beside his stag. She knew she could be happy, living with him in blessed obscurity; a more practical arrangement than his beach-stone castles. For a moment she allowed herself to linger in the dream, and saw a simple cottage blanketed in ivy, tucked deep in the shadows of a cool woodland glade. She saw raven-haired children with brown eyes and bronzed skin, playing knights and ladies in the cathedrals of the forest. She saw a lean man, face lined by years but not by age, laughing with his children in the warm afternoon sun. She saw a woman, framed in the cottage doorway like a looking-glass, crowned with nothing but sunlight and shadow.

But they were alone. So very, very alone.

The dream changed and melted, and she saw Arthur, drenched in blood and sullied by battle scars. He hovered on the edges of a mighty battle, and swords and axes flared like red lightning in the smoky afternoon sun. She saw legions breaking and running for cover; saw the might of Arthur's army fractured by the sheer number of encroaching Saxons, who bore down on Arthur's position like a thunderous black cloud. Arthur sat his horse unblinking, his hand balanced on the pommel of Excalibur, his face a mask of gore. But his eyes were most worrisome: they were utterly blank. He stared at the Saxons and heard their skin drums and didn't seem to care.

He looked so alone. So very, very alone.

A hitching sob broke from Guinevere's throat, and she slipped to the side, resting her cheek on Lancelot's shoulder and pressing her face into his neck. "My Lancelot," she whispered, her fingers clutching at his arms. "My dearest Lancelot, I love you both so utterly; and if love be equal, it cannot be the measure of happiness. So it falls to other factors to decide our fate, but still to matters of the heart." She raised her head and gazed into his eyes.

"I would not part you from Arthur for all the world," she murmured, her voice heavy and unwieldy. "Too long you have lived as brothers and friends, and to break that bond for my own selfish gain would be the heaviest burden I've yet to bear." Her hand stroked his cheek. "And I cannot abandon my countrymen. I cannot. It is not in me. As queen I can aid them as I never could in a hermit's cottage in the woods, nor a gleaming stone castle on a northern shore. They look to me as much as to Arthur to safeguard their future."

Taking his hand, she pressed his palm against her belly and gazed into his eyes. "Is that not the purpose of all we have done?" she whispered. "If we give in now, then our child is not a child of love, but a child of treachery. What we pledged to do for love of Arthur we will have done in spite of him, and all we have fought to protect will crumble around us like straw houses in the wind." Tears blurred her vision again and she swallowed, letting go of his hand. He kept it pressed tight against her naked stomach as she wrapped her arms around his neck and nuzzled his nose with her own.

"As queen, I have a man and country I love, and the peace I have yearned for for so many years," she whispered. "But I swear to you, Lancelot. Were I merely Guinevere, and no longer a queen...I would reign by your side in cave or castle, poverty or wealth, and never know tears outside of joy."

She expected him to kiss her, but he smiled instead; a half smile that softened his eyes. "I have never had a proposal turned down with such eloquence, Guinevere. No," he added at her mortified look, and she heard him chuckle slightly. "I am not angry, nor offended. I have been with many women; it does my soul good to know I fell in love with a woman of character." He raised a hand to run his thumb over her cheekbone, and she leaned into the touch.

"You have done for Arthur what nothing else could do," he murmured. "You have made him truly happy. I think, before he met you, his happiness was entirely bound to his future in Rome. That was shattered when he learned of Pelagius; and even if that knowledge had not come to him so early, he would have learned soon enough upon his return to the city." He sighed and closed his eyes, kissing her chin and nuzzling her throat. "You took the broken pieces of a man's soul and patchworked them together, Guinevere; I thank you for that. He is my friend, and though I envy Arthur his life with you, I could never stomach becoming the man who broke him apart again."

Guinevere raised her hands to cup his face, waited until his eyes found hers, and kissed him gently. "You are a good man, Lancelot," she murmured against his lips.

Lancelot's arms twined round her waist. "We are a sorry pair, are we not, Guinevere?" he mused, as she nibbled down his neck.

She didn't answer, because there was nothing to say, and too many things still left to do before sunlight conquered the rain and found her alone in this rumpled bed. Alone save for memory and hope for the future.

Tilting him back onto the bed, she schooled him silently in what it meant to love without remorse.

\-------------------------------------

**A YEAR LATER**

 

 

"That's the way, Gilly! Come on, boy, hit him again!"

Lancelot laughed as he leaned on the fence of the training ring and watched Bors stir his son into a bloodthirsty frenzy. Or rather, Bors was stirring HIMSELF into a bloodthirsty frenzy. Gilly - a handsome young lad of twelve - looked like he was having tremendous fun as he dueled with Baerlemon, another boy about his age, their wooden swords clacking like a stable door in a windstorm.

"I don't believe he needs your encouragement, Bors," Lancelot observed, watching as Gilly disarmed the other boy for the third time, quickly scooping up the other young man's practice sword and handing it back so they could go another round. "He seems to be progressing quite fine on his own."

"Yeah, well, he's too much of a gentleman," Bors grumbled, watching the lads start fighting again. "Did you see how he just handed Barley back his sword? Too much a gentleman by half!"

"That’s because he's mine," Lancelot said with a grin, laughing at the glare Bors shot at him. "And it might not serve him on the battlefield, but it will serve him well in his lady's chamber someday."

"I think you will have to yield to Lancelot in that regard, Bors," a familiar voice broke in behind them, and the two men turned to find Arthur grinning at them from a few steps away. "He knows of what he speaks."

"Does he?" another voice broke in, and Lancelot felt his heart lurch when he saw Guinevere approaching from behind Arthur, a teasing smile on her face and a blanket-wrapped bundle in her arms. "Not all women have the same tastes, else Vanora would have chosen him over Bors."

"There, you see, Lancelot?" Bors said, elbowing Lancelot gruffly and gesturing to the practice ring, where Gilly and Baerlemon had abandoned their dueling and were laughing and chasing each other around the perimeter in a frenzied game of tag. "Oi, gods, what's he doing now?"

Arthur laughed and clapped the gruff knight on the shoulder. "He's being a boy, Bors," the king said.

"What for? Never did anyone any good, being a boy. Much more interesting being a man."

Guinevere laughed and came to stand between the king and Lancelot. "You say that, Bors, but you'll miss him when he's grown and gone." She grinned at her husband. "Am I right, Arthur?"

The king turned to his queen, a huge, foolish grin on his face as he gazed down at the child cradled in her arms. "As always, Guinevere," he said, resting his hand on her back and leaning down to lay a kiss on the sleeping baby's forehead. "How long has he slept?"

"Since last he fed." She tilted her head to kiss her husband's cheek. "I could have left him with my handmaidens when I came to fetch you, but I couldn't bear to set him down."

"I am glad you didn't." He kissed her in return. "May I hold him?"

Guinevere smiled and placed the baby in Arthur's arms. The king cradled his son gently, and Lancelot saw his friend's face soften. "Enjoy your children while they are still children, Bors," Arthur said quietly, rocking the sleeping baby. "They grow too quickly, and once they are grown, you become only a part of their lives, even if to you they are the center of the world."

Lancelot did not hear Bors' response. Guinevere stood in profile before him, the evergreen scent of her hair lingering in the air like the first breath of spring. It was the closest she had stood to him in the year since their one night together. Perhaps she felt as he did: that if they stayed too close for too long a time, their secret transgression would become all too obvious. He felt his body vibrate in sympathy with her proximity, and wondered if she felt a similar harmony.

Indeed she may have, for her voice was oddly quiet when she spoke. "Tell again, my lord, why you chose his name," she murmured, her eyes fixed on her son. "For I love to hear you tell it."

Arthur smiled, not raising his head. "Amadeus," he said with a soft smile. "Love of God. I prayed for you so long, my son," he said to the babe in his arms. "I prayed for you for the good of this land, for your mother, and for my own selfish sake. And God heard those prayers and gave you to us, healthy and strong and all we could wish a son to be." He looked up now, and Lancelot saw his friend's eyes follow the two boys as they chased each other around the practice ring. "But not an Artorius. Artorius was a name of slavery, in this country and beyond. The future needs fresh faces and new beginnings. The future belongs to Amadeus."

Lancelot felt something brush his hand, and glanced down just in time to see the queen's fingers drop away to hang by her side once more. She had tucked something into his hand, and he closed his fingers around it without looking.

"I had my own prayer, my lord," Guinevere said with a smile, reaching out to take the child from Arthur's arms.

The king gave his son over carefully. "What was that, my love?"

"That the child should have my eyes." Lancelot forced himself not to start in surprise as she continued. "I find it hard enough to quarrel with you when you look at me with those eyes. However would I fare if my son were blessed with such a riveting gaze as well? I should never win an argument!"

Lancelot felt his stomach loosen out of its sudden knot at the sound of Arthur's laughter. "Well then that he has your eyes, my queen," he said, moving forward to circle Guinevere's waist with his arm. "Though I fear it puts me in much the same spot you feared for yourself."

They were perfect. The realization came as no shock, but it was the first time Lancelot had allowed himself to realize the truth of the statement. King, queen and crown prince, gathered together in a tight, loving circle. He felt a pang of regret, that he could be no more than a tangent to that flawless curve; and then a surge of guilt, when he realized he had unconsciously substituted himself in Arthur's place. To see the happiness on his friend's face was enough to quell all remorse, until he found himself alone in his room at night, dreaming of petal-scented bathwater.

There had been other women; coquettes aplenty. But there would never be another Guinevere.

"You said you had come to fetch me, Guinevere," Arthur observed, breaking Lancelot's reverie. "For what purpose?"

"Lords Bargil and Nahrun are waiting on your negotiating prowess, my lord," she said, the twinkle in her eye directed at her husband. "Apparently you had agreed to settle a matter of a certain tract of land each lays claim to?"

Arthur cursed silently under his breath, and Lancelot chuckled; it was not often his friend swore aloud. "The men are as intractable as a mountain," he muttered, before switching his gaze to Lancelot. "Count your blessings you are not king, Lancelot. You knights live a merry life, while I closet myself away in chambers with pigheaded fools who would not know compromise if it bit them both on the nose."

Lancelot jerked a thumb towards Bors. "I beg to differ."

Bors growled, and Arthur laughed. "I leave you to your pursuits," he said, tilting his head to them and offering his arm to Guinevere. "My queen?"

Guinevere took his arm, careful to support Amadeus in the crook of her other elbow. "My lord." She turned to the knights by the practice ring fence and bobbed her head to them. "Bors." Her eyes found Lancelot's. "Lancelot."

 _I would reign by your side..._ Her eyes spoke to him, as clearly as though she said the words. _In cave or castle, poverty or wealth, and never know tears outside of joy._

Lancelot swallowed and bowed his head in response. "My lady," he said, around the burn in his throat.

When he looked up, the royal couple was already walking away, moving up the green sward towards the fortress of Camelot, talking quietly to one another.

"Gilly!" Bors shouted at his shoulder, and Lancelot turned from his study of the couple, focusing his attention once more on the boys in the ring, who had flung their swords to the side and were now wrestling about in the mud. "Get him in a hold, son! Like the one I showed yeh! That's right! Good lad!" He turned a proud smile towards Lancelot. "You see that?" he said, pointing back to the ring. "That's all Bors."

Lancelot chuckled and looked back up the hill. Guinevere and Arthur had all but disappeared.

"No, actually," he mused softly. "It's because he's mine."

\-------------------------------------

 

In his room later that night, Lancelot finally unrolled the twist of paper Guinevere had tucked into his hand at the practice ring. It was a tightly rolled letter, wrapped around a lock of hair tied with a silk ribbon. Holding the lock in one hand, he commenced to read, thinking to himself how much the queen's tight yet fluid handwriting suited her personality.

_My Champion,_

_I know I have no right to call you such, but it is how I address you_   
_in my mind's eye, and so I give in and put it to paper._

_I have treated you horribly. This past year I have spent_   
_in staunch avoidance of you, but I swear, dearest, I never meant_   
_my behavior to cause you pain. If you have suffered, know only_   
_that I have suffered, too. As the pregnancy progressed, I feared_   
_in my emotional state I would say something which I would come_   
_to regret. That I would let loose the secret we share, and so all_   
_our plans would have come to nothing. I could not let that happen,_   
_my heart, and so I tore myself to shreds instead and contented_   
_myself to be apart from you._

_Amadeus is your son. I see it in the planes of his face, though all_   
_others claim he looks tremendously like me. His temper is subdued,_   
_which makes me believe he is learning from Arthur, for he certainly_   
_did not inherit his temperament from either of us. I am glad,_   
_nonetheless, that he looks like you, for it reminds me it was not a_   
_dream. Arthur's joy is unparalleled, and it gladdens my heart to see_   
_him so proud. Not a day goes by he does not bless me for giving_   
_him so strong a son, and while I cannot tell him the truth of the matter,_   
_I can pass the sentiment to you._

_Thank you, my dear one. Thank you for what you have done. The_   
_sacrifices you have made in deference to the good of my people will not_   
_be unrequited. I do not know what the gods may choose as a blessing_   
_upon you, but I pray they will hear me and let me take part in some small_   
_measure of that reward. Such entreaties must surely be answered, for no_   
_other supplicant has ever been so fervent on the altar of belief as I. Gods_   
_willing, my knight, you and I will not always be separate. Someday, we_   
_will dance together on dew-dipped grass in some burnished netherworld,_   
_and the world will remember our story. We are tragic, my love, but we_   
_have hope, and there is no dearer thing in life than hope._

_I love you. I love you. I am your beggar princess, if you will be my_   
_vagabond king. I love you with shadows and half-whispered words in the_   
_dark. And while it is never enough, it MUST be enough, for I cannot bear_   
_the consequence if it turns out to be too little. Know only that I still think_   
_of you when I am alone, and when I gaze into the eyes of our child._

_Please take this lock of hair and do with it as you will. I have our son to hold_   
_close when I wish to be near you. Now have this piece of me to do the same._

_I love you, and it will always be so. I still remain_

_Forever yours,_   
_Guinevere_

Lancelot stared at the note, his thumb unconsciously stroking the lock of hair and its blue silk ribbon. As Guinevere had said, it was not enough, but it would have to BE enough. History was littered with starcrossed lovers; Fate had no reason to alter her plan for the pair of them.

Standing, he reread the note as he paced across the room, the lock of hair curled around his finger. He would tuck it in his helmet, where it would blend with the topknot of horse hair and bring him good luck. He would put it inside, of course, so it would not shake loose, and perhaps replace the ribbon with a rawhide point instead. The ribbon he would keep separate - perhaps sew it somewhere in his clothes.

He stopped walking and reread the note a third time, memorizing the curl of her G and the hard lines of her N. He committed each sentence to memory, imagining her speaking the words, as she no doubt had done while she moved the quill over the parchment. He knew his queen too well. "Were I a vagabond king, my lady, I would have stolen you away long ago," he murmured to the air.

Perhaps he had. Perhaps that was why she could only write him a note, and not meet his eyes. Perhaps she knew, just as he did, that despite all their protestations, they could never really be the same again.

He dropped the note into the fire.

The edges of the parchment curled and blackened, and a lick of flame gnawed through the middle of the letter and set the note ablaze. Lancelot watched it burn until it had shrunk to a glowing cinder amidst the crackling logs. It burned away so easily. The smoke rose up the chimney and floated away across the misty moors, and no one was any the wiser that it carried a queen's love for her husband's closest friend. It made Lancelot wonder if her sentiment could be true; if she could honestly be forever his. Would the world truly remember their story?

And if it did...what would it say?

 

**The End**


End file.
